The 119th Indiana General Assembly convened Tuesday, Jan. 6 to start off the 2015 legislative session.
The schedule of legislation that will be introduced and debated in both the Senate and the House of Representatives includes several pieces of legislation that relate to Gov. Mike Pence’s legislative goals for this year.
At this time there are 550 bills on the docket in the Senate and 476 bills on the docket in the House.
There are several bills on the docket in both the House and Senate that address education, including House Bill 1095, a bill which re-establishes a small school grant for certain corporations; HB 1114, which provides annual grant awards to assist individuals with student loan debts; HB 1129, which expands the prekindergarten pilot program to include 13 total counties; and HB 1438, which redistributes funding for the authorization of adult high schools.
Some of the bills that relate to the health of Hoosiers include Senate Bill 417, which establishes the Indiana health insurance exchange, SB 464 and HB 1448, which both mandate that Medicaid include some kind of substance abuse detoxification as services and SB 115, which adds some additional regulation to the statewide ban on smoking.
The Indiana General Assembly is also currently in the process of drafting and passing legislation for the state budget for the next two fiscal years.
The 114th United States Congress convened for a new legislative session Jan. 3. The session will end ?Jan. 3, 2017.
This congress has a Republican majority in both the House, with 247 Republican representatives, and the Senate, with 54 senators.
Indiana has nine representatives in the House of Representatives, along with two senators in the Senate.
Both Rep. Todd Young, R-Bloomington, and Sen. Joe Donnelly have introduced similar legislation that proposes a new definition for “full-time employment,” with the Save American Workers Act of 2015 and the Forty Hours is Full Time Act, respectively.
Young has announced his objectives for the next two years, focusing on a specific agenda of preserving the traditional definition of full-time employment, enacting meaningful regulator reform to encourage the growth of small businesses and working toward better outcomes in assistance programs, according to an editorial column that he published ?last week.
One piece of legislation that has received preeminent support from both Indiana senators is the Keystone XL Pipeline Act, a bill which authorizes the construction and operation of an oil pipeline that would cross the U.S.-Canada ?border.
In his platform, Donnelly voiced his support specifically for the Keystone XL Oil pipeline as part of an initiative to support domestic energy.
“My work will not be done until every Hoosier who wants a job has a job,” Donnelly said. “And the Keystone XL pipeline means jobs for American families and energy security for our country.”
Sen. Dan Coats has also backed legislation that would authorize the ?pipeline.
“The Keystone pipeline would support tens of thousands of jobs during its construction, invest billions in the American economy and increase revenue to state and local governments,” Coats said. “All of this without spending a dime of taxpayer money.”
